Street Fighter Anniversary Collection Hands-On Impressions

We go a few rounds with the PlayStation 2 version of Capcom's upcoming fighting compilation.

Capcom has debuted the PlayStation 2 version of the latest game to bear the Street Fighter name, Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, at an event held just prior to E3 2004. Hyper Street Fighter II and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike may be released in separate packages in Japan, but here theyll come on the same disc.

Upon firing up the Anniversary Collection, youre given a choice between the two games. First is Hyper Street Fighter II, a new collection of the Street Fighter II characters that shouldnt be confused with Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, which was the third arcade game to bear the Street Fighter II name. The Street Fighter II games changed quite a bit over the years. Characters were balanced and rebalanced from version to version. For example, in the original SF2, Ryu and Ken were identical. But over time, their abilities drifted apart. Ryu developed more on the power side of things, while Ken became a faster character over the course of the five games. This game lets you pick any Street Fighter II character from any one of those five games, allowing you to pit Street Fighter II Zangief against Super SF2 Turbo Dee Jay, if you so desire. The US version on display didnt have any of the option screens in, so we were unable to determine if the game would allow you to choose from the different voices and music that also evolved over the course of the games.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike seems like a pretty straightforward port of the game. It has the basic modes youd expect from a fighting game, such as versus and training modes. The game animates about as well as the arcade or Dreamcast versions did, but the PlayStation 2 version currently has a bit of a dull, slightly blurred look to it.

The game is also in development for the Xbox, but the Xbox version was not on display at Capcoms pre-E3 event. The Xbox version will support online play via Xbox Live, but the PlayStation 2 release supports offline play only. Both versions should be in stores this summer.